I actually a while back did a ferment of radish pickles with stevia a while back doing a sugar free variation of a quick pickle video from the RU-vid channel tanjis kitchen. At the time I was doing keto for medical reasons amd the sweet but savory radish pickles with ginger sounded really good. The original recipe used brown sugar and distilled vinegar, my variation used brine from a veggie ferment and stevia. I think stevia as you are doing it works better in a veggie ferment instead of a alcohol/yeast ferment like ginger ale. Just a suggestion. Btw, the radish pickles came out soft but with a candy like flavor and very mild acidity in the undertone/aftertaste. It worked well for my sour gummy cravings despite the texture difference.
Great idea and thanks for sharing! Fermented drinks use starter cultures (like kefir, ginger bug, or kombucha scoby) that need a sugar source to get the fermentation process going. But that's not the case with veggie ferments, so stevia should work great in those as a flavoring! 😄
@@FermentationAdventure yrah, I know that's why I mentioned it as a alternate use. Its won't work in a soda like this until its almost to the vinegar stage and most of the sugars are gone. Stevia won't work as a food source though things like allulose or eyrithritol with some natural carbs and sugars even if minimal might work as a sugar free natural alternative to stevia in a soda like this. It may not be as fizzy though.
you could use a whole lot of stevia and cook it. you can ferment almost any part of any plant. cook it to break down sugars or use enzymes to break down the cellulose. make sure to filter after cooking, otherwise u will get a anerobic reaction an a lot of methane.
Hi there! Thanks so much for the question, and yes, that is a really great option! You could let it ferment most of the way out so that there's very little sugar left, but like you said, add stevia afterwards for taste. Enjoy! 😄
Hi! That's true for making a ginger bug starter culture (which is fresh ginger with sugar and water). But in this video, we quickly show how to make traditional homemade fermented ginger ale, which involves making a boiled ginger flavored liquid, and then adding some ginger bug starter culture to it. Here's the full video on how to make homemade fermented ginger ale: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KsMUuMmKwps.html. However, you can also make fermented ginger ale by using juiced ginger! That's very spicy and refreshing too. If you're interested, here's the video on how to make that one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4t8peSK0AdI.html (this one is not boiled). Enjoy!
Welcome back! That and I must hand it to you, I haven't considered making a ginger mead but it's now on the list (I've made a few meads now, in addition to my 18% dry ginger brew and other "prison hooch" fermented/brewed fruit juices). Your channel got me started. Thanks!
Hey there! Thanks so much! We're honored to have helped kick off your own fermentation journey and it sounds like you're running with it. Nice! We just love the flavor of honey and how it evolves in mead. 🥰
Raw and Agave is always my go to and all I use. I made it once from the top of my head without writing it down, it was delicious. The 2nd attempt was disastrous, I couldn't remember what I did the first time. So now I have a go to recipe, Thank You so much.
Hello my friends, I like you very much and you are an inspiration to me. Thank you for including a test with different types of sweeteners. Honey was my favorite. I add to your type of freshness. and frozen fruit from our own garden. I also add dried home-made primroses and I like it very much. I've become somewhat addicted to kombucha. I also tried different types of tea. Greens, matcha, but not very good. I like black tea + sugar the best, and in the second fermenter, dried breadcrumbs and a little lemon at the end. I can't get enough of it. I am happy for your videos and I greet you from Europe, the Czech Republic. Hi Magda
Hello Magda! We loved hearing from you! Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful recipe ideas. You are so creative! Keep up the great work in your ferments! 💗
Thanks for asking! YES! We actually do prefer the taste of the fermented ginger ale using honey rather than traditional sugar. Although we really enjoy the taste of honey, and the flavor of it really comes through after fermentation. We can't say that we'd prefer it in every recipe, since it does affect the flavor, but we'll definitely start experimenting with using honey in some of our other recipes. 💗
This is a fantastic way to use honey from my hives! I've been making mead for the last few months, and it has one heck of an alcoholic kick to it, fermenting withing a week during the warm summer. I'm starting a ginger bug today so i can try making honey-ginger ferment. I've watched a lot of your videos today and I just love how happy you both are :) Thank you for the inspiration
thank you for this educational video. I am from India 🇮🇳 I ferment with jaggery, I even tried making vinegars using it, it's a good alternative to the Mexican pilloncio for my Tepache. Plus, it has many micronutrients that aid the fermentation and the yeast.
Hi there! Thanks for chiming in! We appreciate hearing from you all about how your ferments are going, and it's great to hear that you have success using jaggery! 😄
Hi Paul & Sarah, this is Anne from Curieux Nomades 🙋🏻♀️Very interesting experiment. I will definitely choose the Canadian theme 🇨🇦, hehe! The honey seems to be very tasty. 👌See you next time!
It sure is! That agave plant is so versatile! We keep our home at a fairly steady 72 degrees Fahrenheit. For anyone fermenting in cooler temps, it will ferment more slowly, and for warmer temps it could go much more quickly. Happy fermenting!
Aww, thank you so much for the love!! We're so happy to have found a coconut sugar that works. Paul was especially excited about that coconut sugar. And we're already thinking of other recipes to share with you all!
I followed you from your early days, then lost track .... I'm back here on your channel after some months, and I'm immensely impressed, not just by your pro approach to video production, but the continuing research-based design you bring to fermenting by experimentation. In all this, you guys have kept your personal touch. You are go-to experts in domestic fermentation.
Wow, thank you so much for your sweet comment and your confidence in us! We try to put the best information out there and it brought us so much joy to read your comment. We're excited for this next year of fermentation! Thanks for watching, and as always, happy fermenting! ❤️
Yaaa another video :) ... I have to try honey ... I think I will leave jaggery for my morning coffee. I make 3 gallons per week of ferments. I use 1 gal carboys with an air lock. Tomorrow I will be bottling a gallon of cherry and a gallon of pineapple and in a couple of days a gallon of apple made with store bought apple cider. As an experiment I am going to try 50/50 apple and orange. I love your videos.
Yay you’re back! Amazing video! Great to know there many options outside of sugar. Question: you skim the foam layers off the top. Since it doesn’t hurt, could you mix it in? Is there a reason why you choose not to?
Thanks so much! We are so excited to share another video with you! Great question about the foam on top. Anything sitting on top is a risk for mold, so we just skim it off as a precaution. As long as it's just foam, stirring it back in would be fine, but you'd have to check it daily to see if the foam came back. So by stirring it back in, you'd have to check on it more often and make sure to keep stirring it. Hope that helps! 😄
Great fun video! Thanks! I was a follower of your podcast, The Fermentation Podcast, which I still enjoy occasionally. You have a very balanced presentation between info, humor, and inspiration - wonderful to watch!
Sweet!! Thanks for allowing us to reminisce about Paul's podcast days. 💗 Hmm, maybe we should come out with another podcast sometime... Ha! Who knows where this new year will take us! 😄
Thank you for watching and for the comment! You guessed it! The fruit jar had quite a bit of pulp, both that sank to the bottom of the jar and some that also floated to the top. But all the jars had a layer of sediment at the bottom which was mostly the ginger pulp from the ginger ale. And then as the fermentation process continued, there was also lees at the bottom, which is a thin white layer from the natural biproducts of the fermentation process. Hope that helps! 😄
Thank you for this video! It was great! I'm curious, though. Is there a way to measure how much sugar is left over in a fermented drink, once it's ready to drink? I think many people worry about the type of sugar and the amount of sugar because of health issues. Even if fermented foods are good for our gut, some people may be wary of these drinks because they're trying to cut out sugar. If there is a way to measure, it would be great if you could do a video on that. :)
I find 2 cups of sugar is too much for a gallon, I now use 1 1/2 cups of sugar per gallon and the results are not sweet and not dry ... perfect balance for me
@turtles1717 Thanks for the question! The easiest method is to do a taste test along the way, perhaps after the bubbles start slowing down during the fermentation process, to see if it still taste sweet. The sugars are eaten up during the fermentation process, so once it reaches a certain point, the drink will taste completely dry. Even thought the no-calorie sweetener will not ferment, it could be used at the end of the fermentation process to sweeten your ferment at the very end, just for taste. Hope this helps! 😄
@briankerr4512 Makes complete sense! We started to decrease the amount of sugar from our ferments as well, but then again we can always just let it ferment longer. 😅
@@FermentationAdventure yup ... since my house is at 65deg F, I ferment for 6 full days but for apple cider (from the store) I'm fermenting for 8 Days because the apple cider is really sweet.
Agave and honey have been used to make alcohols for eons, so it's already known they ferment. Stevia would be interesting. Monkfruit and allulose would be more interesting to see.
Hi! Well, a lot of people do know about honey, and yet we receive a lot of questions over the years about whether it can be used in fermentation. We think it's great to keep this knowledge out there. With monk fruit being a similar no-calorie sweetener as stevia, it should have similar results. 😄
Paula again. I like your shows. I should send you my recipe for Root Beer. I came from Pennsylvania. Not too far from amish area. There is a lot of root beer and Sarsaparilla beer. At events it comes in big wooden barrels like beer.
Hello! Thanks for the question! We actually started a test jar to see if date paste would work, but then it got so messy that we decided it wasn't really a good option. 😂 Although date sugar should work just fine! It should be similar to the coconut sugar or if you were to use brown sugar.
Hi there! Thanks for the question! Based on the great honey results in this ginger ale experiment, you should also be able to use honey to start your ginger bug! 😃
@@FermentationAdventure it totally does. It's from wild bees. They only harvest a small portion to make sure the bees stay and have plenty of food for rainy days
Yes we'd recommend still burping it once in a while, even when it's done fermenting and in the fridge for longer storage. 2-3 days of bottling seems to be plenty for us when we're trying to build some carbonation. In case it helps, here's our original homemade fermented ginger ale video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KsMUuMmKwps.html 😄
Hello! Yes, that should work. We've made ginger bugs before without the peel. You could also try washing your non organic ginger well with non chlorinated water, and see if that works as well. Happy fermenting!
Hi! We usually stick to just raw cane sugar in our ginger bug starter culture to keep it simple, however you should be able to create your ginger bug using honey. I see from your other comment on the ginger bug video that you went ahead and gave that a try, so can't wait to hear how it turns out!
Hey there! Thanks so much for your sweet comment! We love making videos for you all and have exciting plans for more videos throughout the year. Thanks so much for watching! 🥰
I am retired & live in Mexico 19 years. I use Piloncillo small once’s. I can get dark ones or light ones, I like the dark ones. I just drop one in the jar as is. It does really well for me. I never tried the blue agave. I have used coconut water & water grains to make coconut kiefer. But it does ruin the grains. They puff up like over cooked rice. I have lots of grains so that is ok.
You rock, thank you so much for the love! The kitchen is ready for more ferments, so we'll get the camera out and get to creating some more content for you all! 😅
hello could you please make a video about the percentage of alcohol in water kefir ? like the one you did for ginger root beer. i am muslim and i am concered about the alcohol percentage thank you so much ❤❤❤
i feel that adding ginger bug voided this experiment as adding bug to it would almost 100% be more effective in less failed ferments then having it ferment creating the bug. but thanks for the video was super fun to watch.
I was wondering if I can use half and half of regular sugar and monkfruit sweetner? I'll still be using sugar to feed the ginger bug, but not as much sugar. This is for making the soda not the ginger bug.
Hi! We've kept bottled kombucha in the fridge for years actually, but the taste does change a bit over time. It's probably best to drink within a year, and to burp them every couple of months or so.
Thanks for watching! **Spoiler Alert!!** The stevia did not ferment. We had used our fresh stevia from the garden, dried and ground, which means there was no sugar content to feed the ginger bug starter culture. Although you could ferment with a sugar source, let it ferment all the way out, and then add stevia before drinking it, just for taste. Hope that helps!
I love the information you provided. It was extremely helpful I am glad you two are back! Fermenting is my new thing. Keep giving us more of your expertise. THANK YOU!! We will be waiting.
Woohoo!! We're so excited that you're getting into the beautiful world of fermentation, and thank you so much for your sweet comment! We look forward to bringing you more content soon! 🥰
Great to see you back! I just grew my own SCOBY following your video. 😊 I definitely want to try the fruit and honey versions. I've made ginger beer with bread yeast (surprisingly good - not too sweet), but the ginger bug is compelling...
Thanks for the love and congrats on growing your own SCOBY! Good luck experimenting with the different types of sugar! And if you haven't tried a ginger bug yet, it's super easy --> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wtb1BvRUWmI.html
Huzzah great to see you two! Thank you, this is an amazing wealth of information! I have used honey regularly for jun, I have used piloncillo for tempache. I can now do more experimenting!
Wow! Thanks for the very helpful information. You saved many of us a great deal of experimentation. I loved hearing your take on some of the flavours as well. This Canadian will definitely give maple syrup a try. So grateful I found your video!
Thank you for watching! We're so happy to hear you found it helpful! Can't wait to hear how you like the maple syrup. Sarah is Canadian as well (hence the "Oh, Canada!" singing in the video 😅) and obviously LOVES maple syrup. 😍
Some of these definitely had a layer forming on top! But then the layers on the ginger bug ferments are usually just foamy, unlike the solid scoby layer that forms on top of kombucha.
I want the results from all jars graphically if possible I'm in Australia but ingredients and brewing times are critical and available worldwide BUT flavour is my main interest...
Sure! You're welcome to check out the results with pictures of each ferment on our website: fermentationadventure.com/which-sugars-ferment-making-homemade-ginger-ale/
What are we going to ferment next? I made switchel, a drink they used in 18th century as a energy drink made with molasses, vinegar, water and powedered ginger. Powdered ginger was the only way it would have been available in those days, but I have chopped fresh ginger and boiled it for the flavor. Sitting in the refrigerator it seems to be takingon a bit of a fizz. I'm thinking of adding a bit of ginger bug to it and see what happens.
Hello! That sounds interesting! Adding the ginger bug should help get the fermentation process going. Are you fermenting it in the refrigerator the whole time, or at room temperature?
Thanks so much for your question! We made two videos on exactly how to make it here. Hope that helps! Ginger Bug Starter Culture: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-wtb1BvRUWmI.html Ginger Ale: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KsMUuMmKwps.html
Hi! Welcome to the channel! Yep, we're still around and planning to do more videos! ❤️ In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our existing content on learning to ferment. Happy fermenting! 😃
Hi there! Thank you so much for the love! We were so excited to share this video with you all, and we're looking forward to sharing another recipe soon. 💗
Hi! Regarding the foam we skimmed off of the jaggery and coconut sugars, we primarily skimmed it off so that it wouldn't get mold on top. Since the foam is more exposed to air, it could also start to get contaminated, so we tend to just throw it out.
